Last year's V-League runners-up Binh Duong has sacked coach Mai Duc Chung after the team's poor performances recently, the club management said on Sunday.

The club management said they would move assistant coach and technical manager Dang Tran Chinh into the position of the head coach.

The 2007-08 champions' manager Tran Van Duong said the management's decision was not based on the 1-2 away loss at Hang Day Stadium to Hanoi T&T.

Duong said they had planned the move earlier. Three weeks ago, they'd moved Chinh to the position of assistant coach and technical manager from the post of head coach of the club's second team TDC Binh Duong playing in the country's second-tier First Division.

At that time, Binh Duong had suffered two consecutive defeats to Hoang Anh Gia Lai and Dong Tam Long An in the V-League and managed a scoreless away draw with Malaysia's Selangor.

In the past three weeks, though, Binh Duong had played better football before the away loss to top-placed Hanoi T&T in V-League's eighth round on Sunday.

They had beaten Nghe An and Ninh Binh in the sixth and seventh round and defeated Indonesia's Sriwijaya 2-1 in their fourth match of the first round of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup.

Chung was invited to take the reins of Binh Duong in the mid 2009 season and helped the team to finish second in V-League and make their way to the semifinals of Asia's second-tier AFC Cup.

The achievements convinced the club management that he could take the club further in the V-League and the National Cup competitions.

However, Binh Duong was kicked out of the running for the National Cup championship and are now in fourth place on the V-League table, five points adrift of top-placed Hanoi T&T.

Binh Duong is the third V-League club that has fired their coach this season, after Ninh Binh and Dong Tam Long An.